Tour Operators

Share This Article

Since 2007, Condé Nast Traveler has handed out our annual World Savers Awards to travel companies that are powerful forces of sustainable travel, responsible travel, and eco-friendly travel. Here, the finalists in the Tour Operators category.

Why It’s Cool: Smiling Albino gives back to the community by building schools and water wells in Nepal, providing sick children with transportation to the AngkorHospital for Children in Cambodia, and giving scholarships to less fortunate students.

Why It’s Cool: As if Micato’s non-profit, AmericaShare, which runs a community center in the slums of Nairobi and helps those affected by HIV/AIDS in Kenya live a better life, isn’t already doing enough, its One for One program sends a child to school for every safari sold.

Why It’s Cool: A&K has helped launch a Penguin Cam – a “real time” video feed of the Torgesen Island Adelie penguin colony in Antarctica. Among the community initiatives it runs in each country it visits, the company supports a clinic in Uganda and provides daily lunches to approximately 200 children in South Africa who may otherwise not have had a meal that day.

Why It’s Cool: Terra Incognita partners with a local conservation project in every destination it visits—from non-profits geared towards replanting native trees in Costa Rica to the Jane Goodall Institute in Tanzania to initiatives that work to protect the mountain gorilla population in Rwanda.

Why It’s Cool: Big Five helps protect the marine life and habitats in Belize’s Barrier Reef ecosystem – the largest barrier reef in the Western Hemisphere. Among the community programs it supports all over the world the company also helps preserve Khmer architectural heritage in Cambodia.

Why It’s Cool: From installing water tanks in Panama village schools to partnering with Childsafe Cambodia to combat child sex tourism and exploitation and supporting women weavers in Peru, G Adventures has social projects all over the world.